The Parent Movement

Parents initiated the prevention movement in response to the escalation of drug use among teenagers throughout the 1970s. Surveys conducted by the government indicate that in 1962, just seventeen years before drug use peaked at the highest levels in history, less than 2 percent of the entire U.S. population, and less than 1 percent of adolescents, had tried any illicit drug. By 1979, when the use of most drugs peaked, twenty-four million Americans used drugs regularly. Seventy percent of young adults (ages 18-25), 65 percent of high school seniors, and 34 percent of youth (ages 12-17) had tried an illicit drug. Even higher rates of
use occurred with alcohol and tobacco. Ninety-five percent of young adults, 93 percent of seniors, and 70 percent of youth had tried alcohol, while 83 percent of young adults, 74 percent of seniors, and 54 percent of youth had tried cigarettes. One in nine seniors smoked marijuana daily.